A year ago, Adrian Fine was elected to the Palo Alto City Council on what he calls a “pro-housing” platform. He’s hoping that he's on his way to delivering on that promise.

Last week, all nine councilmembers voted to pursue multiple policies and strategies from a pro-housing memo drafted by Fine, along with Vice Mayor Liz Kniss and fellow councilmember Cory Wolbach.

The goal is to help Palo Alto, an affluent and anti-growth city, to build more homes, including homes that average workers can afford. That means embracing more apartments near transit and in walkable neighborhoods, such as downtown.

“We can’t just keep saying we care about affordability, diversity and the environment and not make any changes to the system,” Fine said.

The three main goals are to update zoning to encourage more types of housing, increase density in areas near transit, jobs and services and streamline the approvals process.

Fine, a Palo Alto native, ran last fall at a time when the high cost of housing made national headlines. A former planning commissioner, Kate Vershov Downing, penned a blog that went viral about not being able to afford to buy a home in Palo Alto despite she and her husband earning high salaries.

Fine said high housing costs mean people who grew up the area can’t live there as adults, young workers can’t buy homes, and longtime residents who can’t keep up with the prices move away. Employers either lose workers or have employees commuting long distances — stirring concerns about the environment.

“I wanted to begin shifting the conversation and shifting our regulations to where we see a more housing positive outcome,” Fine said. “If we care about affordable housing, that’s great, but are we willing to make trade-offs with parking and with density?”

To achieve those goals, the memo outlined various strategies including:

Change residential zoning from units per acre to what’s known as floor area ratio or FAR. That would give developers a maximum building size based on the land size, which could encourage developers to build smaller, less expensive homes.

Encourage dense housing development near major transit such as bus and train stops as well as more urban areas such as downtown, which has mostly one or two-story buildings. Fine said with more density, housing could be built above retail in three to four-story buildings.

A no-net-loss of housing policy that would require developers to replace homes that are demolished for new development. Currently, a homebuilder can tear down multiple homes on one lot and then build one or two larger homes, which reduces the city’s housing stock.

Revise parking requirements. Most housing developments require developers to build at minimum 1.5 spaces per new home, but that is too much if residents live next door to Caltrain, Fine said.

Expand the city’s inclusionary housing program to include rental homes. Currently, the city requires for-sale housing developers to set aside 15 percent of new housing for low-income buyers or pay a fee, but doesn’t require inclusionary on-site housing or fees for rental housing developers.

With the council’s greenlight, city staff will take a few months to analyze various proposals and return with research on costs, benefits and effectiveness.

Some of the proposals could be implemented quickly, while others will take time to vet and refine, Fine said.

“I don’t expect all of these to fly, but some of them will,” Fine said. “It’s imperative that we have this discussion.”